My observation is that the reaction to infidelity is not that rational. And many times when it is forgivable it simply destroys the relationship. The partner forgives the other partner but simply doesn’t find the same value in the connection. I’m sure you know relationships can be delicate things. And you have to know that emotions don’t follow cultural or background beliefs perfectly, and people’s emotional bonds are not necessarily amenable to such things as ‘this is forgivable and/or understandable.’ We don’t even necessarily know what causes deep bonding between spouses or what causes these to fracture, do we? So I don’t think ‘realism about human foibles’ is necessarily going to protect us from rifts due to certain actions when it comes to certain types of loves.
So we couldn’t get rid of these effects for all people necessarily by ‘knowing in advance that this is normal.’ It might help a little but certain other responses could take over even for people who accept that as a fact.
This is true for other things—losses and death. I know my loved ones will die. I know I will die. i think about these facts a lot, and ponder various ways to prepare. I have my doubts I will automatically deal with them with calm acceptance. The loss or fear will be great no matter how I prepare. The emotions come from a more primitive place. That’s probably why our attachments to people can be so lasting and profound.
That’s not to say that nobody is capable of being sanguine in the face of infidelity or death. It’s merely to say that these are skills or what have you that go beyond the acceptance of various beliefs like ‘this is just one of those things that happens in life.’ There’s something in them that are beyond rationality. After all, the person we love is simply one person among many. It’s theoretically possible we might never have met them or loved them. It’s all arbitrary whom we are connected with in that profound way. However, our emotions do not reflect this in any way. If they did, the intensity of the connection we feel would not happen like it does. Our identity is entangled with theirs in some mysterious way—even our survival may be.
That said, I do think gay men who are deeply bonded but in more open relationships seem to have some kind of infidelity realism that is pretty fascinating, and maybe shows it is cultural in some respect or that there are outlooks that will allow greater latitude than the ones that structure monogamous relationships. But I don’t know if their strategies necessarily are connected to longer or more lasting or more satisfying relationships overall. But at least it does show there’s a fair amount of variability possible. I’m just not sure if you can create that or if it just sort of happens. It would also work if the love relationship were more like a friendship. But the love relationship between partners -when it’s really deep and profound—involves more of a merging of the self with the other person that you don’t necessarily get in other types of relationships, and this can’t survive all schisms.
Though of course it is true that there are some background assumptions that cause people to get hung up on infidelity that possibly make it harder to get over, and it might help to examine these.
But there’s just something about somebody deeply hurting you for their own benefit that’s going to mess up a relationship, and make it harder (if not impossible) to maintain. Saying ‘you should accept that love is not necessarily about sexual fidelity’ and ‘this wasn’t about you’ or ‘this person didn’t mean to hurt you’ won’t work. However, there might be various processes that work—e.g., allowing the cheated-upon person to be furious for a lengthy period of time in which the unfaithful person has remorse. These are often hard to tolerate or go through but they can work. Perhaps certain processes allow us to re-establish bonding after major breaks in connection. Things like that might not be able to be short-circuited by rationality just like a lot of relationship bonds aren’t fully rational in the first place but more like limbic experiences. They work out in the longer term when there’s more than emotion behind them but other factors that create affinity. But the emotional aspects remain mysterious.
my favorite line here: "this can't survive all schisms." the potency of the bond makes it vulnerable. I'm still not sure how much of this is culturally bounded, and I expect it's a lot...but we have really limited data to know what to think! Thanks for reading, and for this thoughtful comment.
I think that another, less tractable problem is that even when couples talk about infidelity, they don’t really think it will happen to them, so they may be inclined toward forgiveness in the early stages of their relationship. I believe that it also depends on whether the commitment is “eternal fidelity, i.e., marriage” or another type of relationship. I don’t think that people truly understand the idea of forever in any relationship, especially one with memorized vows, etc.
I happened to catch 'Stuck in Love' (2012), in which two of the three relationships exhibit infidelity. And it plays out exactly as you describe. We are shocked -- shocked! -- that such perfidy is possible.
Jared Diamond in THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE (I think) has a really good discussion of comparative anatomy and behavior in the great apes. Humans are generally more monogamous than either species of chimp but less monogamous than gibbons.
More and more people are viewing monogamy as an “opt in” arrangement rather than a default. I’ve written about chosen family and intimacy where monogamy is not a requirement.
In addition to relationship structure, I think it’s important to discuss expectations about the frequency and types of sex that each partner wants to engage in. Including kink. Hangups around human sexuality begin with a morbid lack of sexuality education. The silence fosters a culture of shame that lends itself to infidelity.
Something to consider that hasn’t been mentioned is the significant increase in life expectancy over time. In the 1800s, living to 30 or 40 was more common, so perhaps maintaining a monogamous relationship was less challenging simply due to the shorter lifespan. With people living much longer today, the dynamics of long-term relationships have inevitably evolved and may require different considerations.
Thank you for this! I STRONGLY agree. Everyone acts as if cheating is the end of the world and the literal worst thing that can happen in a relationship, and yet it happens CONSTANTLY. When do we collectively decide to address this in a more nuanced, informed, and rational way? When are we going to abandon this perpetual moral panic over cheaters and start admitting that virtually everyone with opportunity cheats? (I'd be willing to bet the stats you posted on this are so conservative as to be nowhere near the truth.)
I'm very happily polyamorous, and part of what got me here (and I suspect drives a lot of people away from monogamy as the default paradigm) is seeing the harm done to individuals and relationships by infidelity, and recognizing that it's the LYING that's the betrayal. Humans wanting sexual and romantic variety is the NORM. We need to stop lying about who we are and what we want.
There are loads of people who don't actually want monogamy but feel that agreeing to it is the only way to have a deep, intimate partnership, and that's so sad and fortunately not true. But in order to make nonmonogamous arrangements as respected in mainstream society as monogamous ones, we need a societal paradigm shift. I think we're probably a few generations away from that, but I also think it's already happening.
For what it's worth, I’m nearly 100% in agreement with you. (Also, nonbinary pride awareness!) I also hope more understanding comes sooner rather than waiting for generations, but that’s not the hill I’m willing to die on—it’ll happen when it happens. There are more urgent matters at hand, though, and maybe addressing them will lead to greater openness in relationships and communication. Who knows, perhaps it will take another world war to create a significant shift in our moral and social contracts. It's not too early to think about the seeds we want to plant for what comes after.
EDIT: I was basing this on old info, and I am seeing the consensus is that we're culturally monogamous, and probably little to no biologal component to monogamous tendencies.
From the (DELETE -> biological anthropological; INSERT --> some idea I soaked up from a book in 2008) perspective, our species - humans - are monogamous-ish. We're wired to be *somewhat* pair-bonded, mostly but NOT exclusively exclusive with one partner.
To me, it's amazing there's as much actually monogamous behavior as there appears to be, considering what biological anthropology finds, that we're not even close to strictly monogamous.
One way to advocate for society to cultivate the potential for more forgiveness is for there to be more education about the diversity of patterns across society and across other animals - to learn about the range of behaviors that do exist. And in order for us to talk about all of this, we all have to address the stigmas associated with sex and related topics.
One might even assert that it's the stigma around sex generally that contributes to infidelity: unhappiness with sex, curiosity about the forbidden - yet no space to discuss - so transgression takes on increased priority, when biology and social taboos become synergistic.
Thanks for taking on this topic. It's definitely public health significant. Also, thanks for not being another stuffy doctor that cringes at talking about something humans definitely do: sex and transgressive sex.
I'd love to see the research that suggests we are "wired to be *mostly* pair-ponded," because I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest that in any studies that weren't heavily affected by cultural assumptions and norms. What made you write that?
So what does the research say about monogamy or non-monogamous tendencies of our species? Are you looking at biological or cultural anthropology, sociology?
I read a book in the PennState bookstore, and it was convincing at the time. It was a physical anthropology of human relationship tendencies book. The year was 2008. So yeah, you probably have more current information, particularly if you study this area, and I'll even give more weight to your opinion if you're a biological anthropologist. Yet neither do I find - nor have I read - a convincing argument that the species is strictly one or the other. We are not not monogamous nor are we monogamous. And there is the book with the eponymous title _Monogamous-ish_ so there's probably some answers there, unless the author or the book has been deemed not worthy of paying attention to. The area I'm getting into professionally is systems change of health structures, so my agenda is to create space for more conversations — and "What made me write that?" To create conversation and prompt thinking in different ways. I will continue exploring lesser-appreciated and valuable perspectives. What do you do? How would you like to be considered?
I am not a biological anthropologist - god I wish! - just a layperson with a lot of opinions and a decent intellect. My opinions on this particular issue are drawn from a) my own experiences, desires, and tendencies, b) the experiences, desires and tendencies I've observed in others, especially the things people reveal in private conversations once they've realized I won't judge them for telling the truth, and c) reading books like Sex at Dawn (Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jetha), Untrue (Dr. Wednesday Martin), The Ethical Slut (Janet Hardy & Dossie Easton), Testosterone Rex (Cordelia Fine) and lots more on the topics of sexuality, relationships, monogamy/nonmonogamy, and feminism.
I wish we had ways of conducting research on this topic that didn't rely on self-reported data, because the cultural stigma around cheating and infidelity is so thick that it's hard to trust that data. I've seen recent statistics saying that about 20-25% of adults have cheated in their lifetimes, and I'd be willing to bet the actual number is much higher - and wowza, what if we could tabulate how many people have *wanted* to cheat? I imagine the numbers would explode. But there's no way to know for sure until people are willing to be fully honest about their desires and decisions, and there's no way to ensure that until the stigma around even *wanting* multiple partners is seriously weakened - if not fully wiped away.
But yeah - basically, I think monogamy is a cultural phenomenon, not a biological one, based purely on the fact that the vast majority of human beings have more than one partner throughout their lives, and lots and lots of monogamously partnered people will admit privately that they deeply desire to stray, and often do.
This is an important comment. A lot of good stuff there. Clearly more content to address in the future. There is a really limited scholarship that allows us to know what to say about it though, which limits doctors on having any tools with which to meaningfully educate
We used to have a whole sex positive service line with groups and specialized therapists to support all sorts of relationship structures between adults at our old practice. Unfortunately it’s presence was weaponized by a handful of bigots to make all sorts of outlandish sex negative claims about the program and us personally
Definitely glad to be in a relationship with you where we discussed the way humans be human in relationships and give each other much grace and curiosity. Its is a privilege I have seen both personally and professionally that many couples do not have.
My observation is that the reaction to infidelity is not that rational. And many times when it is forgivable it simply destroys the relationship. The partner forgives the other partner but simply doesn’t find the same value in the connection. I’m sure you know relationships can be delicate things. And you have to know that emotions don’t follow cultural or background beliefs perfectly, and people’s emotional bonds are not necessarily amenable to such things as ‘this is forgivable and/or understandable.’ We don’t even necessarily know what causes deep bonding between spouses or what causes these to fracture, do we? So I don’t think ‘realism about human foibles’ is necessarily going to protect us from rifts due to certain actions when it comes to certain types of loves.
So we couldn’t get rid of these effects for all people necessarily by ‘knowing in advance that this is normal.’ It might help a little but certain other responses could take over even for people who accept that as a fact.
This is true for other things—losses and death. I know my loved ones will die. I know I will die. i think about these facts a lot, and ponder various ways to prepare. I have my doubts I will automatically deal with them with calm acceptance. The loss or fear will be great no matter how I prepare. The emotions come from a more primitive place. That’s probably why our attachments to people can be so lasting and profound.
That’s not to say that nobody is capable of being sanguine in the face of infidelity or death. It’s merely to say that these are skills or what have you that go beyond the acceptance of various beliefs like ‘this is just one of those things that happens in life.’ There’s something in them that are beyond rationality. After all, the person we love is simply one person among many. It’s theoretically possible we might never have met them or loved them. It’s all arbitrary whom we are connected with in that profound way. However, our emotions do not reflect this in any way. If they did, the intensity of the connection we feel would not happen like it does. Our identity is entangled with theirs in some mysterious way—even our survival may be.
That said, I do think gay men who are deeply bonded but in more open relationships seem to have some kind of infidelity realism that is pretty fascinating, and maybe shows it is cultural in some respect or that there are outlooks that will allow greater latitude than the ones that structure monogamous relationships. But I don’t know if their strategies necessarily are connected to longer or more lasting or more satisfying relationships overall. But at least it does show there’s a fair amount of variability possible. I’m just not sure if you can create that or if it just sort of happens. It would also work if the love relationship were more like a friendship. But the love relationship between partners -when it’s really deep and profound—involves more of a merging of the self with the other person that you don’t necessarily get in other types of relationships, and this can’t survive all schisms.
Though of course it is true that there are some background assumptions that cause people to get hung up on infidelity that possibly make it harder to get over, and it might help to examine these.
But there’s just something about somebody deeply hurting you for their own benefit that’s going to mess up a relationship, and make it harder (if not impossible) to maintain. Saying ‘you should accept that love is not necessarily about sexual fidelity’ and ‘this wasn’t about you’ or ‘this person didn’t mean to hurt you’ won’t work. However, there might be various processes that work—e.g., allowing the cheated-upon person to be furious for a lengthy period of time in which the unfaithful person has remorse. These are often hard to tolerate or go through but they can work. Perhaps certain processes allow us to re-establish bonding after major breaks in connection. Things like that might not be able to be short-circuited by rationality just like a lot of relationship bonds aren’t fully rational in the first place but more like limbic experiences. They work out in the longer term when there’s more than emotion behind them but other factors that create affinity. But the emotional aspects remain mysterious.
my favorite line here: "this can't survive all schisms." the potency of the bond makes it vulnerable. I'm still not sure how much of this is culturally bounded, and I expect it's a lot...but we have really limited data to know what to think! Thanks for reading, and for this thoughtful comment.
I think that another, less tractable problem is that even when couples talk about infidelity, they don’t really think it will happen to them, so they may be inclined toward forgiveness in the early stages of their relationship. I believe that it also depends on whether the commitment is “eternal fidelity, i.e., marriage” or another type of relationship. I don’t think that people truly understand the idea of forever in any relationship, especially one with memorized vows, etc.
Great article!
I thought that the demon was a health executive!
And here I thought that I had read the post and viewed the demon🤯
Demons? I've got vampires and orcs and big health executives, oh my!
I look forward to reading more on this!
Then today's video post has found a way to disappoint you. It is viewing not reading ;)
More out on the topic today!
I happened to catch 'Stuck in Love' (2012), in which two of the three relationships exhibit infidelity. And it plays out exactly as you describe. We are shocked -- shocked! -- that such perfidy is possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctXbDE1m7v0
Jared Diamond in THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE (I think) has a really good discussion of comparative anatomy and behavior in the great apes. Humans are generally more monogamous than either species of chimp but less monogamous than gibbons.
More and more people are viewing monogamy as an “opt in” arrangement rather than a default. I’ve written about chosen family and intimacy where monogamy is not a requirement.
In addition to relationship structure, I think it’s important to discuss expectations about the frequency and types of sex that each partner wants to engage in. Including kink. Hangups around human sexuality begin with a morbid lack of sexuality education. The silence fosters a culture of shame that lends itself to infidelity.
Something to consider that hasn’t been mentioned is the significant increase in life expectancy over time. In the 1800s, living to 30 or 40 was more common, so perhaps maintaining a monogamous relationship was less challenging simply due to the shorter lifespan. With people living much longer today, the dynamics of long-term relationships have inevitably evolved and may require different considerations.
I'm not remotely advocating for monogamy--I'm addressing that relationship dishonestly has a potential to be harmful
Thank you for this! I STRONGLY agree. Everyone acts as if cheating is the end of the world and the literal worst thing that can happen in a relationship, and yet it happens CONSTANTLY. When do we collectively decide to address this in a more nuanced, informed, and rational way? When are we going to abandon this perpetual moral panic over cheaters and start admitting that virtually everyone with opportunity cheats? (I'd be willing to bet the stats you posted on this are so conservative as to be nowhere near the truth.)
I'm very happily polyamorous, and part of what got me here (and I suspect drives a lot of people away from monogamy as the default paradigm) is seeing the harm done to individuals and relationships by infidelity, and recognizing that it's the LYING that's the betrayal. Humans wanting sexual and romantic variety is the NORM. We need to stop lying about who we are and what we want.
There are loads of people who don't actually want monogamy but feel that agreeing to it is the only way to have a deep, intimate partnership, and that's so sad and fortunately not true. But in order to make nonmonogamous arrangements as respected in mainstream society as monogamous ones, we need a societal paradigm shift. I think we're probably a few generations away from that, but I also think it's already happening.
For what it's worth, I’m nearly 100% in agreement with you. (Also, nonbinary pride awareness!) I also hope more understanding comes sooner rather than waiting for generations, but that’s not the hill I’m willing to die on—it’ll happen when it happens. There are more urgent matters at hand, though, and maybe addressing them will lead to greater openness in relationships and communication. Who knows, perhaps it will take another world war to create a significant shift in our moral and social contracts. It's not too early to think about the seeds we want to plant for what comes after.
EDIT: I was basing this on old info, and I am seeing the consensus is that we're culturally monogamous, and probably little to no biologal component to monogamous tendencies.
From the (DELETE -> biological anthropological; INSERT --> some idea I soaked up from a book in 2008) perspective, our species - humans - are monogamous-ish. We're wired to be *somewhat* pair-bonded, mostly but NOT exclusively exclusive with one partner.
To me, it's amazing there's as much actually monogamous behavior as there appears to be, considering what biological anthropology finds, that we're not even close to strictly monogamous.
One way to advocate for society to cultivate the potential for more forgiveness is for there to be more education about the diversity of patterns across society and across other animals - to learn about the range of behaviors that do exist. And in order for us to talk about all of this, we all have to address the stigmas associated with sex and related topics.
One might even assert that it's the stigma around sex generally that contributes to infidelity: unhappiness with sex, curiosity about the forbidden - yet no space to discuss - so transgression takes on increased priority, when biology and social taboos become synergistic.
Thanks for taking on this topic. It's definitely public health significant. Also, thanks for not being another stuffy doctor that cringes at talking about something humans definitely do: sex and transgressive sex.
I'd love to see the research that suggests we are "wired to be *mostly* pair-ponded," because I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest that in any studies that weren't heavily affected by cultural assumptions and norms. What made you write that?
So what does the research say about monogamy or non-monogamous tendencies of our species? Are you looking at biological or cultural anthropology, sociology?
I read a book in the PennState bookstore, and it was convincing at the time. It was a physical anthropology of human relationship tendencies book. The year was 2008. So yeah, you probably have more current information, particularly if you study this area, and I'll even give more weight to your opinion if you're a biological anthropologist. Yet neither do I find - nor have I read - a convincing argument that the species is strictly one or the other. We are not not monogamous nor are we monogamous. And there is the book with the eponymous title _Monogamous-ish_ so there's probably some answers there, unless the author or the book has been deemed not worthy of paying attention to. The area I'm getting into professionally is systems change of health structures, so my agenda is to create space for more conversations — and "What made me write that?" To create conversation and prompt thinking in different ways. I will continue exploring lesser-appreciated and valuable perspectives. What do you do? How would you like to be considered?
I am not a biological anthropologist - god I wish! - just a layperson with a lot of opinions and a decent intellect. My opinions on this particular issue are drawn from a) my own experiences, desires, and tendencies, b) the experiences, desires and tendencies I've observed in others, especially the things people reveal in private conversations once they've realized I won't judge them for telling the truth, and c) reading books like Sex at Dawn (Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jetha), Untrue (Dr. Wednesday Martin), The Ethical Slut (Janet Hardy & Dossie Easton), Testosterone Rex (Cordelia Fine) and lots more on the topics of sexuality, relationships, monogamy/nonmonogamy, and feminism.
I wish we had ways of conducting research on this topic that didn't rely on self-reported data, because the cultural stigma around cheating and infidelity is so thick that it's hard to trust that data. I've seen recent statistics saying that about 20-25% of adults have cheated in their lifetimes, and I'd be willing to bet the actual number is much higher - and wowza, what if we could tabulate how many people have *wanted* to cheat? I imagine the numbers would explode. But there's no way to know for sure until people are willing to be fully honest about their desires and decisions, and there's no way to ensure that until the stigma around even *wanting* multiple partners is seriously weakened - if not fully wiped away.
But yeah - basically, I think monogamy is a cultural phenomenon, not a biological one, based purely on the fact that the vast majority of human beings have more than one partner throughout their lives, and lots and lots of monogamously partnered people will admit privately that they deeply desire to stray, and often do.
That is a fair criticism
"Criticism is a mirror, not a weapon."
This is an important comment. A lot of good stuff there. Clearly more content to address in the future. There is a really limited scholarship that allows us to know what to say about it though, which limits doctors on having any tools with which to meaningfully educate
We used to have a whole sex positive service line with groups and specialized therapists to support all sorts of relationship structures between adults at our old practice. Unfortunately it’s presence was weaponized by a handful of bigots to make all sorts of outlandish sex negative claims about the program and us personally
People want to destroy what makes them feel their own lack. How sad.
Definitely glad to be in a relationship with you where we discussed the way humans be human in relationships and give each other much grace and curiosity. Its is a privilege I have seen both personally and professionally that many couples do not have.
As usual, My remarkable wife sticks the landing on what's so special about our relationship.
Great post on an important topic that we all too often bury; or make into a societal joke instead of a societal poison.
Thanks much! Share with your world!
Already re-stacked. I do wonder how the rates in our medical world compare to the world at large. Feels like it's higher, but I could be wrong.